Where do you draw the line?

[Shawn Gossman]

Is it appropriate for online communities to allow hate speech and other offensive content?

What is the line between free speech and hate speech?

 

[joelr]

I think it's important to recognize the following parameters:
1. Every community is beholden to the collective terms of use for all of its upstream providers, whether technology, financial, or otherwise. If you use Amazon AWS, Paypal, Stripe, accept Visa, etc. you are required to follow their terms.
2. Free speech (specifically in context of USA) is not a right to say anything you want.
3. Allowing certain kinds of speech invites certain kinds of users with certain kinds of behaviors.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I think it's important to recognize the following parameters:
1. Every community is beholden to the collective terms of use for all of its upstream providers, whether technology, financial, or otherwise. If you use Amazon AWS, Paypal, Stripe, accept Visa, etc. you are required to follow their terms.
2. Free speech (specifically in context of USA) is not a right to say anything you want.
3. Allowing certain kinds of speech invites certain kinds of users with certain kinds of behaviors.

I agree with this pretty much 100%

Especially #3!

If you allow a certain type of speech, you'll get that type of people on your forum.

If I allowed political debate here for example, I feel like eventually it would be more political debate than online community admin topics.

 

[Tracy]

Depending on the "niche"... you simply have to allow certain types of posts... even though you may not "agree" with them if the site is not technical in nature.
If a site is technical in nature and users are posting pure BS that is easily shown to be such by fact... then you act upon those posts in one way (usually calling out the BS). But if your "niche' is more "opinionated" in nature, then you are WAY more restricted if you are going to actually allow presentations of BOTH view points.
And unluckily... many sites can't meet that minimum requirement... as they tend to push their personal opinions and stamp out any alternative stances.

 

[joelr]

Depending on the "niche"... you simply have to allow certain types of posts... even though you may not "agree" with them if the site is not technical in nature.
If a site is technical in nature and users are posting pure BS that is easily shown to be such by fact... then you act upon those posts in one way (usually calling out the BS). But if your "niche' is more "opinionated" in nature, then you are WAY more restricted if you are going to actually allow presentations of BOTH view points.
And unluckily... many sites can't meet that minimum requirement... as they tend to push their personal opinions and stamp out any alternative stances.

You bring up an interesting point. Would you "draw the line" using different standards in different boards?

 

[Tracy]

You bring up an interesting point. Would you "draw the line" using different standards in different boards?

Yep.... a technical niche in which someone goes off on a politics/religion trend should be handled differently than if it's a "general chatter/discussion" board.
If you have have no issues with folks discoursing about Christianity, then one needs to also accept discourse on other religions (as long as the flames don't get high and threats thrown about).

 

[YoYo66]

Yep.... a technical niche in which someone goes off on a politics/religion trend should be handled differently than if it's a "general chatter/discussion" board.
If you have have no issues with folks discoursing about Christianity, then one needs to also accept discourse on other religions (as long as the flames don't get high and threats thrown about).

Unless the board is a Christian board that has the rules stating no proselyting other religions.

I think that "hate" and "offensive" can be somewhat subjective. Just because someone's beliefs disagree with yours, that doesn't make it hateful, and that's the thing that I see on the internet a lot, the claim of hate, when it isn't.

If you're going to put restrictions, you need to also build a guideline with examples of what you believe hate or offensive mean. Otherwise, it can be confusing.

 

[Tracy]

Unless the board is a Christian board that has the rules stating no proselyting other religions.

which would be a niche (and one could call it technical) board. That's why I specified a "general chatter" board (by board, I mean forum.... I fall back to my old BBS reference days occasionally).

I think that "hate" and "offensive" can be somewhat subjective. Just because someone's beliefs disagree with yours, that doesn't make it hateful, and that's the thing that I see on the internet a lot, the claim of hate, when it isn't.

And this is a big issue.... Used to it tended towards one side of the political spectrum, but some in the other side have adopted it, which indicates to me that thin skin and intolerance may be starting to be a societal issue.

 

[Uncrowned Guard]

@Tracy seems to be on point with this one. I also agree that it needs to vary based on the niche and the forum's tone. A forum aimed at kids and children's toys is going to need an entirely different set of standards for content than a forum based on adult videos and politics. Of course, most communities are going to fall in the middle of those two, so things get more "muddy", but the concept remains the same.

Granted, there is offensive and hateful content and then there is just illegal and extreme content, and admins/owners really need to set the line for themselves and their communities on where that line is as it is absolutely not a black-and-white line across the world.

Plus this is the free(ish) internet and admins are in control of their sites (mostly). So it isn't out of the question to have a vulgar children's site or a family-friendly adult content site. Granted, neither of those would be very acceptable by most users' standards. Although this also brings up the need to know your local laws and the laws where your servers are located and your sites are accessed as many nations now have legal requirements that online media falls under.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

In some cases, it might be best to:

Allow your members to define your guidelines...

So that you can:

See what type of members are currently on your community and how they will likely act

It's a good way to determine who you're attracting to your space.

 

[joelr]

Unless the board is a Christian board that has the rules stating no proselyting other religions.

I think that "hate" and "offensive" can be somewhat subjective. Just because someone's beliefs disagree with yours, that doesn't make it hateful, and that's the thing that I see on the internet a lot, the claim of hate, when it isn't.

If you're going to put restrictions, you need to also build a guideline with examples of what you believe hate or offensive mean. Otherwise, it can be confusing.

Would be really interested in hearing more examples in context of your Christian community of people posting things off topic, or other religions (or no religion).